about fanatacism. 64 More significantly the films were becoming pro-North in theirsympathies and were beginning to show southern characters as villains and traitors. 65 Thiscan be seen in Stagecoach (1939) where the southern 'gentleman,' the immaculatelydressed aristocratic Hatfield, 'a notorious gambler,' represents the 'fag-end of southerngentility.' 6 He lives under an assumed name, treats everyone, except the southern lady,with disdain and is the only one to be killed.For the African Americans the changing economic circumstances, and then the war,became another opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism and their citizenship.Participating in America's wars was not about supporting white America, as the slaves haddone in GWTW when they marched through Atlanta on the way to dig fortifications, but tofight against the forces of racism at home and abroad. The different political outlook of the1930s recharged the civil rights movement and on the outbreak of World War II it wasstronger than it had been for twenty years. During the war the NAACP gained many moresupporters and won some notable victories in the courts. 67 Even the army, under pressurefrom the liberals in the Roosevelt administration, began to acknowledge that it had tochange its attitude to the African American troops. African Americans gained respect andself-esteem and also benefited from the upturn in the economy. They looked forward tomaintaining these gains when peace resumed. After Pearl Harbor, Hollywood all butstopped producing Civil War films although GWTW continued to be shown. If Hollywoodwas to resume its interest in the Civil War when peace came would it return to the formulaof its most successful film or would it take an entirely different approach?52
1 William Dean Howells, Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1990, quoted in Eric Foner, Who Owns History?Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (New York: Wang and Hill, 2002), 191.Both films were adapted from popular novels: The Clansman by Thomas Dixon, published in 1905 andGWTWby Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936. Griffith only used The Clansman in the second part of Birth~ on the Reconstruction period.3 The majority of these films were one-reelers, and lasted no more than fifteen minutes.Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1990), 494." Quoted in David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge,Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 11.6 Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2001), 4.7 The Anglo-Saxons and the Nordic peoples were considered superior to all other Europeans. SouthernItalians, for example, were seen, especially in the South, as closely resembling African Americans and called'white-skinned negroes.' Gerstle, American Crucible, 175.uGerstle, American Crucible, 3-6.9 Lewis L. Gould, America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1914 (Harlow, England: Longman, 2001), 23.10 Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, first published 1988), 75-6.11 Blight, Race and Reunion, 357-8. But those in control of the history syllabuses in the South would notaccept versions that did not accord with the Lost Cause myths. Blight, Race and Reunion, 295-9.12 Celia Elizabeth O'Leary, ' "Blood Brothers:" The Racialisation of Patriotism, 1865-1918' in John Bodnar,(ed.), Bonds of Affection: Americans Define their Patriotism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996),78.13 Cowardice in battle was particularly heinous as shown in such films as The House with Closed Shutters(1911) and The Honor of His Family (1910). It was also related to alcohol, which reflected the temperancecampaign by the Progressives, and lead to the Eighteenth (Prohibition) Amendment in 1919.14 In such films as A Special Messenger (1911), Nan, the Girl Spy series (1909-12), and The Price of Victory(1914).15 In such films as A Dixie Mother (1910) and One Flag at Last (1911).16 In 1913 a 'colored' woman who refused to sit in the balcony of the Victoria Theatre, Rochester, New York,lost her suit to defend her civil rights to sit where she wanted. The balcony was reserved for 'Italians and therougher elements.' Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 9-10.17 'Coon' is an American term meaning a raccoon, a sly fellow, as well as a pejorative term for a Negro.Examples of these are Dancing Darkies (1896), Watermelon Contest (1899), A Night in Blacksville (1900),Shooting Craps (1900), The Chicken Thief (1904), Nigger in the Woodpile (1904) and Avenging a Crime orBurned at the Stake (1904).18 There are a comparatively large number of such films including: The Confederate Spy (1910); UnclePeter's Ruse (1911); Hearts and Flags (1911); Mammy's Ghost (1911); None Can do More ( 1912); A GentleVolunteer (191 2); Old Mammy's Secret Code ( 1913); A Slave's Devotion (1914); In the Fall of'64(\9\ 4).19 In films such as The Old Oak's Secret (1914), and His Trust and His Trust Fulfilled (1911).53
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Greenwich Academic Literature Archi
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REEL WARS: COLD WAR, CIVIL RIGHTSAN
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ABSTRACTThis study is an examinatio
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ABBREVIATIONSAMPASAHRBirthCommissio
- Page 10 and 11: Historians using film as a resource
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- Page 14 and 15: Mary L. Dudziak explores this relat
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- Page 19 and 20: historical texts. Hayden White comp
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- Page 23 and 24: How have sympathetic film historian
- Page 25 and 26: Therefore historians can, with over
- Page 27 and 28: identity and these were taken as th
- Page 29 and 30: 21 George F. Custen, 'Hollywood and
- Page 31 and 32: 63 Rosenstone, The Historical Film,
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- Page 35 and 36: War.....[it] defined us as to what
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- Page 45 and 46: 1 William Faulkner, Requiem for a N
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- Page 49 and 50: mainly composed of members of the w
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- Page 55 and 56: stuff with plenty of clothes, rich
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- Page 77 and 78: combining two great myths, which co
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- Page 87 and 88: year later, and there was no lead f
- Page 89 and 90: 20 Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War, Civil
- Page 91 and 92: 56 Richard White, 'Western History'
- Page 93 and 94: 7 have seen the promised land.' 'Th
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- Page 101 and 102: campaigning for Lincoln. John's rea
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discrimination, attempts at univers
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talks about Lincoln pleading that '
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creativity. The Confederates use a
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police in Birmingham and Kennedy's
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1 Martin Luther King Jr.'s, speech,
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44 Blight, Race and Reunion, 8-11,
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- self-belief, reasons for fighting
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Sexploitation - which reversed the
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would surely recognise the Mexicans
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There are similar examples in Major
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on working class whites nor receive
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The conflict between civil rights a
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e trusted from the wiles of the mis
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field-hands are too valuable an inv
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moving the civil rights agenda to a
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McBurney, even though he is wounded
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Most reviewers were sympathetic, se
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conservatism,' as a natural ally fo
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By the early 1970s, Hollywood's opt
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20 Enoch, in Friendly Persuasion (1
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62 Johnson called what happened the
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The world is white no longer; and i
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proceed with civil rights legislati
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would have been counter to the poli
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mid-1990s was rejected as the compa
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those historians who were contestin
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1 James Baldwin, Stranger in the Vi
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39 Robert Brent Toplin, Reel Histor
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1210mmmto3sCT>The number of America
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There is a third problem - that of
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the Library of Congress and the Uni
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mainly contain copies of correspond
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killing. There were two other areas
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are 'no compensating moral values a
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epresented.' 32 However, this was t
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Reference has already been made to
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It is in the final period that anti
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22 Letter from Shurlock to William
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Year Director Company190819091910Ba
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191119121912Grant and LincolnHe Fou
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19131913Call to Arms, TheCarpenter,
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1915 Birth of a Nation, TheColonel
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19341935193619371938193919401941194
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Searchers, TheShowdown at AbileneTh
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Alien, Robert C., and Douglas Gomer
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Cassidy, John M., Civil War Cinema:
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Foner, Eric, Who Owns History, (New
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Landy, Marcia, (ed.), The Historica
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Prince, Stephen, A New Pot of Gold:
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Sternsher, Bernard, Consensus, Conf